Sibiria - Alaska for only $65 billion

[lugo]

Digging tunnels must be hell of a lot of fun.

Just sayin'

[orudge]

I suppose the link to Yakutsk makes some sense, considering the minerals, etc, up there. It is still an awfully long way between Russia/China and the US/Canada, through Siberia and Alaska - although I guess it'd be quicker than crossing the Pacific by ship, in theory.

[Level Crossing]

I like that the article calls funding a 'small detail'.

[teccuk]

60 Billion.

Oh WOW.

That's a pretty staggering sum.

If anything seems an overestimate?

[doktorhonig]

That's definitely not an overestimate.
It's maybe a bit more than with a normal tunnel, but:
1) the costs probably do not scale linearly with tunnel length
2) it's complicated to build below sea level - even in "normal tunnels" there's quite a lot of water you need to get rid of during construction
3) if they really want to move 3% of the world's (rail?) freight through that tunnel, they may have plans for four tracks, or double height for stacked container cars.

[as]

Building the tunnel would be just a part of the project, Yakutsk is far away from Bering Strait and there are no railroads nearby in Alaska either. Also Alaskan railroads are connected to the rest of North American network.

[PikkaBird]

Oh that wacky Tsar Nicholas 11.

[Ameecher]

Remind me what did his dad do again?

[YukonRob]

Also Alaskan railroads are connected to the rest of North American network.

Alaskan railroads are most definitely NOT connected to the rest of North America. They would have to pass through the Yukon and we have no railroads [save the WP&YR - a tourist narrow gauge that only extends from Skagway to Carcross].

[teccuk]

That's definitely not an overestimate.
It's maybe a bit more than with a normal tunnel, but:
1) the costs probably do not scale linearly with tunnel length
2) it's complicated to build below sea level - even in "normal tunnels" there's quite a lot of water you need to get rid of during construction
3) if they really want to move 3% of the world's (rail?) freight through that tunnel, they may have plans for four tracks, or double height for stacked container cars.

Hmm, maybe your right. I suppose that's 40billion £ too.

Cant see this happening!

[PikkaBird]

Also Alaskan railroads are connected to the rest of North American network.

Alaskan railroads are most definitely NOT connected to the rest of North America. They would have to pass through the Yukon and we have no railroads [save the WP&YR - a tourist narrow gauge that only extends from Skagway to Carcross].

I think he accidentally a word.

[Jacko]

I think even if there were railways on both sides, surely they would be using different rail gagues??

Its a good idea in theory but in practice i just dont know, its on a much bigger scale than the channel tunnel.

[Chris]

Its a good idea in theory but in practice i just dont know, its on a much bigger scale than the channel tunnel.

The actual tunnel would only be about twice as long..

[Kevo00]

Well, the channel tunnel ended up costing about £20 billion at 1990s prices. It's on a busy trade route and will still take more than 50 years to repay that plus the cost of the capital. On that basis I think you'd be lucky to do this for £100bn today and then there is still the cost of capital which isnt going to be cheap for a project like this, especially based on the channel tunnel experience. And the cost of carriage would have to be very low compared to the already very low cost of container shipping to attract cargo, meaning it might end up taking centuries to pay back.

Compare this to the low infra costs of container shipping - and this project does not look economically viable in the slightest..

[Jacko]

Plus with the seriously unfavourable weather conditions, its going to be a lot harder than in a stable, temperate climate that is Northern France and Southern UK.

[doktorhonig]

Russian workers are probably cheaper. The question is, whether they need some international engineers as well.

I think this can fill the gap between air and sea transport. If you order a parcel from China, you often don't need it to arrive within a week, but maybe you don't want it to take over a month. And the larger your stuff is, the more expensive air transport and the more competitive rail transport will be.

[John]

Russian workers are probably cheaper. The question is, whether they need some international engineers as well.

Most definitely. But Engineers are the designers, so you only need a handful - which would represent an absolutely tiny proportion of the total budget. You would dig the tunnel from both ends - the western end would be staffed by asian/russian workers, and the eastern end by American (incl. Canada, USA, Mexico and the rest of South America).

Plus with the seriously unfavourable weather conditions, its going to be a lot harder than in a stable, temperate climate that is Northern France and Southern UK.

For building, yes - but then shipping is also susceptible to bad weather. Although it has the huge advantage that if a ship sinks, everyone else can just steer round it - not so for trains.

But I can't see this getting built - there just isn't a huge need for something that's slower than a plane, and faster than a ship. Ask again once the oil has run out.


I'd also like to see how they plan on protecting a tunnel dug through an active fault line.

[Jacko]

That is very true.

The messages would be interesting wouldnt they?

'this train has been cancelled due to it being flattened and Totally and utterly destroyed by a lava flow........'

[doktorhonig]

But I can't see this getting built - there just isn't a huge need for something that's slower than a plane, and faster than a ship. Ask again once the oil has run out.

Oil won't run out. It will just become so expensive that we don't use it for transportation anymore. At some point of time it will be so expensive that we rather synthesize it instead of investing billions to queeze the last drop of it from somewhere below the ocean.

But since it will take 20 years or more to build this, oil will already be 2x to 5x more expensive as now, so better start digging and get some renewable energy to run trains there.

[Kevo00]

Well, we haven't reached peak oil yet, so I think that scenario is actually a lot further away than people like to think. In any case, extraction technology is improving all the time.

In any case, even if we have to go back to steam or fit ships with nuclear reactors the case for building this tunnel still looks extremely limited. A Shanghai-LA rail journey might well take longer than the boat, which taks about 20 days and can carry more than a train could. Plus don't forget all the maintenance costs for the thousands of miles of connecting line from Vladivostok to Vancouver, which would need to be entirely supported by the tunnel traffic.